The Intra-LATA Caller Identity Delivery (CID) Service which is currently offered by some telephone companies raises serious social concerns regarding a caller's right to privacy. These concerns are reflected in the various states' Public Utility Commission regulations which require that CID service providers offer callers the opportunity to maintain their anonymity when calling a CID subscriber. This requirement typically has been fulfilled: (1) on a call-by-call basis by providing callers with a universal CID blocking code (callers wishing to remain anonymous enter the code from the touch-tone keypad of their telephone upon going off-hook and receiving dial tone) or, (2) on a permanent basis by placing the caller's directory number in a database of permanently blocked lines. The conventional methods of CID blocking nevertheless suffer from some serious deficiencies.
For example, both alternatives assume that all callers are aware that their CID information may be disclosed to a CID subscriber and, that these same callers are further cognizant of the means available to avert such a disclosure. The fact of the matter is that most callers are unfamiliar with either of the above-identified CID blocking alternatives.
The call-by-call blocking alternative suffers from an additional shortcoming; it requires callers to enter a CID blocking code without their knowing if the called party is a CID subscriber. Therefore, this alternative is inefficient in terms of the amount of time which callers spend entering a blocking code for calls made to persons who do not subscribe to the CID service.
The "permanent" blocking alternative likewise suffers an additional deficiency; it requires that the caller place his call from a phone whose directory number is stored in a database of permanently blocked lines. As such, this alternative fails to provide callers with a CID blocking capability for calls placed from an "unfamiliar" phone.
It is worthy of note that only Intra-LATA CID Delivery Service is currently commercially available. As such, an originating LEC which does not offer Intra-LATA CID, likewise does not offer CID blocking. In the Inter-LATA CID (ICID) world of the present invention, callers would therefore need to be provided with a method for blocking the delivery of their CID information for calls placed from a LATA which does not offer CID blocking (e.g. LATA 1) to a LATA which offers ICID (e.g. LATA 2). More importantly, that method would need to overcome the above-identified shortcomings present in the conventional methods of CID blocking.